What Jesus meant when he said, “Remain in me.” – John 15:1-10, Part 4

Jesus’ disciples have been listening to him talk about how his father is like a gardener cutting and pruning his followers. Those disciples could easily be wondering…am I about to get cut off?  So Jesus says in verse 3, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”

Jesus is saying that the disciples there are truly his followers.  Their belief is genuine.  Immature, perhaps, but genuine.  Think about how Jesus includes Peter in this statement, even after he has already told Peter that he would deny Jesus three times before morning.  Jesus is giving them hope, knowing they will turn away from him.  Jesus is affirming his disciples.  They have all sorts of room to grow.  Given the tumultuous events they are about to experience, his arrest, beating and crucifixion, the disciples need to know that they are clean, pruned, ready to bear fruit.  But there’s one more vastly important teaching they need now.  Look at verses 4-5,

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Remain.  That’s what they need.  Remain in him.  The branch remains in the vine because the life-giving power necessary for producing fruit flows from the vine into the branch.  Jesus has the life-giving power to produce fruit for his Kingdom.  We don’t have that power.  Only he does.  This is why we pray “Lord, I need you.  We need you.  We can’t do this without you.”

We must remain in him.  But how do we remain in him?  To remain in Jesus is to be connected to him, and to stay connected to him.  That doesn’t mean we have no doubts.  Doubt is normal.  In fact, doubt and faith are not opposites, but mutual parts of a healthy relationship with God.  If you ever have doubts about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, you are a quite normal believer.  We will likely all go through periods of stronger faith and weaker faith through the years.  Having doubts and weaker faith doesn’t mean you no longer remain in Jesus. 

Investigate your doubts, talk about them, pray about them.  Embracing doubt will almost always result in stronger faith.  It is when we ignore our doubts that they can build to full-blown loss of faith.

But Jesus is not just talking about belief.  He is talking about beliefs that show themselves to be faithful by remaining in him.  What actions can we do to remain connected to Jesus?  I would suggest that we can look to Jesus himself to discover the actions he did to remain connected to the Father. 

Jesus lived a life that was very fruitful.  He habitually practiced his faith out of the overflow of his heart.  His love for God the Father flowed out into making disciples, treating others with love and forgiveness and grace.  He lived in community with his disciples and friends. He invited and welcomed all people, especially those on the outskirts of society. 

Jesus regularly left the disciples and the crowds to spend time alone with God.  This is not just prayer, if we think about prayer as speaking our requests to God.  That is an important part of prayer.  Jesus will talk about this practice of asking in just a moment.  But there is more to prayer.

Jesus also talked about how he listened to what the Father said.  Listening prayer is vital.  Listening prayer means we spend time with God and we are silent, but in our silence we are active, actively hearing, listening for God the Spirit to talk with us.  We rest in him.  We are still.  We invite God to speak to us.   We ask him, “Spirit, how are you doing?” because that’s what friends ask, because they care, and then we listen for their response.  Last week we heard that the Spirit is communicative, and so listen.  We listen not just to learn content.  We listen so that we can follow his guidance. 

We also listen through meditation on the Word of God.  Primarily the Word of the God is the Bible.  To meditate is to think deeply about what we read.  Biblical meditation is not an emptying of the mind, but a filling of the mind with the thoughts of God, as written in Scripture.  Again we meditate on Scripture not to feel amazing when Jeopardy has a Bible category and we run that board.  No, we meditate on Scripture to see how we might more fully follow the wisdom of Scripture.  Remember how Jesus said in John 14 that if we love him, we show it by obeying his commands?  We read Scripture to learn his commands, which are in our best interest, and then we strive to do what he said.

That’s exactly what Jesus did.  Jesus practiced remaining in the father by doing the work of the mission of the Kingdom.  He proclaimed Good News, he made disciples, he healed the sick, he loved all, he forgave, he confronted injustice.  He lived a simple life. On and on.  We strive to do what he did, asking him to empower us. 

Another way to understand fruit-bearing is that of making disciples.  A fruit tree drops fruit on the ground.  The fruit contains a seed. The seed grows into a new tree which produces more fruit.   This process of multiplication, of reproduction is one of the ways to understand Jesus “bear more fruit” teaching.  In other words, we remain in him, asking him to empower us to invite other people to follow him, and we help them grow as his disciples. 

Another way we remain in him, which he clearly demonstrates for us, is a sacrificial lifestyle.  We give generously to his Kingdom mission.  That giving is not just financial, but it also includes our time and our abilities.  Jesus gave it all.  We can give sacrificially because we are connected to his life-giving power.   He will sustain us! 

Photo by Sid Leigh on Unsplash